Are soccer skills more important than life skills?! Ontario minor soccer thinks so!

Posted by Mitch Zeltzer

Growing up playing various sports taught me athletic skills, coordination, sports knowledge, the value of healthy lifestyle, commitment/loyalty, and the importance of practice.  Possibly more importantly though, it taught me about team spirit, good sportsmanship, what it takes to rise to the top and be the best, respecting the game, how to win graciously, and one of the more difficult lessons - how to accept losses.

It was recently announced that Ontario minor soccer is going to stop keeping score and standings for leagues of players 13 years old and younger.  In this article, people who were involved in the decision making or the implementation of this new philosophy seem to be missing the point.  They keep talking about soccer skill development as though that is the only reason parents are encouraging their children to participate in team sports like soccer.

Sure, I grew up dreaming of becoming the next Wayne Gretzky, Michael Jordan, Babe Ruth, etc.  But we need to acknowlege the reality of the role sports should play in a child's life.  According to some sources less than 2% of high school athletes continue to play their respective sports in college, and the odds of going pro are event worse, with only 0.0008% of athletes making the big leagues (and the odds could be even worse depending on the sport you are going after!)

So knowing this, how could it make sense to sacrifice lessons of healthy competition and sportsmanship for more soccer skill development?  If every youth league followed suit, how are Ontario's youth going to learn how to deal with compitition appropriately?  How are they going to learn to become gracious winners and how to accept losses?  Competition is part of life, and like any other skills, in order to develop it, we must have the opportunity to practice it starting at a young age.

In my humble opinion, this is a step in the wrong direction.  What are your thoughts?

Game of the Month: Name Tag Grab

Purpose: This game is often used as an ice-breaker, but can also be a great way to talk about competition vs. collaboration.

Materials: 1 name tag per participant (with his/her name on it!)

Description:

• Have the participants stand in a circle. 
• Place a name tag on each participant's back.  Do not let them know what name they have on their backs, also, be sure that no one has his/her own name on his/her back.
• On "Go!" the group is to scatter and to try and find their respective name tags. 
• When the find the person who has their name tag, they should introduce themselves, or do a funny handshake, and then take their name tag and put it on their chest.
• Once a player has both found his/her name tag AND no longer has a name tag on his / her back, he/she is to return to the original circle.
• The game ends when everyone has returned to the circle.
• Time the group's performance to see how quickly they can complete the challenge.

Things to Note:

• How long did it take the group to complete the task
• Were they competitive in their approach, trying to be the first to complete the task?
• Were they collaborative in their approach, not worrying about only themselves but rather how they can help everyone complete the challenge faster? 

HAVE FUN!!

Caine's Arcade- [MUST WATCH VIDEO!]

Posted by Adam Kertesz

This is a must watch video and maybe my favourite one that I've seen all year. This kid is a perfect example of how creativity can shine through in so many amazing ways. We hear all the time about how video games are draining kids of their imagination and creativity, well check this out and tell me if your opinion has slightly changed on that topic.

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Girls and Bullying

posted by Mitch Zeltzer

I read an article today that was all about Girls and Bullying.

The article asks the reader to consider: "is your daughter a mean girl?"
http://www.todaysparent.com/tweens-teens/tween-teen-bullying/is-your-daughter-a-mean-girl

It's an interesting article and even more interesting are the comments from the readers.

What do you think about this article's position and language??

Here were my comments to the article:

Wow... this article seems to have really struck a chord with a lot of people.  It's no surprise for such an important/controversial issue facing today's youth.
Firstly, I will say, that I really like some of Beverly's advice.  
One thing that really jumped out at me though was the irony of the article's title "Is your daughter a mean girl?" when you put it next to some of the most important advice in the article: "we have to be very careful that we are not labeling any child."
Yes, children can make some very poor and -at times- cruel choices.  And yes, some children make these types of choices more frequently than others might. But, these children are not "bad kids" or "mean girls", and if we label them as such, you can be sure a pattern will definitely emerge. Beverly is right in that it is  the adults role to help these children learn to make better choices, and one of the best ways is to nurture the great choices they are already making by acknowledging the good they already do and boosting their self-esteem and self-worth.  This WILL in the long run help them make better choices in the future.
Many of the commenters have voiced that they feel a punishment or consequence is appropriate if your child is making bully-like choices.  I would argue that there is ALWAYS a consequence to our actions.  Our role is to help our children see the consequences of our choices both good and bad.  This is where discussion, reflection, apologies, role-playing, etc. come into play.  The trick is to not focus on punishing our children, but rather on educating them and preparing them for the next time they are faced with a similar choice to make.
There is so much more that can be said about this, but I will leave it at that for now.
-Mitch

Bonus Game of the Month: Mystery Count

Purpose: To develop group cohesion, concentration and patience.

Materials: none!

Description:

• The goal of the game is as a group to count as high as possible.
• Have the group sit in a circle with heads down/ eyes closed. 
• There is no predetermined order, anyone may say a number at any time, as long as they follow the following rules:

• Only 1 voice may say a number
• The group must count in order without skipping any numbers

• Not an easy feat for any group, but it's amazing to see when the group slows down, is patient and begins getting a feel for each other how high you can count

Game of the Month: Tail Pull

Purpose: Illustrate the point of working towards a common goal

Materials: 1 "tail" per participant, evenly distribute tails of 5 different colours. (tail can be made of ribbon, socks, etc.)

Description:

• Sit everyone in a circle and evenly distribute 1 of 5 different colour tails to to the group 
• Have the participants tuck the end of the tail into the band of their pants leaving the rest hang down
• Tell players, "you each have a coloured tail" the game ends when there is exactly 1 person of every color left standing. 
• The group must try and pull out other peoples tails. Once your tail is pulled, you must sit out and can no longer pull out tails

Discussion / Reflection: 
As much as you may feel the need, do not help the group come up with a strategy to successfully finish this task. What you will likely see happen is a very chaotic every man for himself approach. However, without proper planning and teamwork, this challenge will be very difficult to accomplish.  This makes the debrief even more powerful when you ask questions like:

• Why did YOU want to be the one left standing?
• What prevented your group of thinking to get together with the people of the same color and everyone pulling your own tail out except for 1 person? 
• Why don't we think of working together? 
• What got in the way of our group achieving our common goal?